According to Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Daryl Caudle, who spoke with reporters Monday at the Sea-Air-Space 2026 exposition near Washington, D.C., the winner of the U.S. Navy's 6th generation stealth fighter program, the F/A-XX, will be selected in August. He said that the deselect was "driven by a race to get ahead of quickly evolving enemy capabilities, the U.S. Navy is now aiming to enter the next step of contracting for its 6th-generation crewed fighter – known as F/A-XX – by August.

While it was recently reported that the Navy, bolstered by funding from Congress for the new F/A-XX, planned to award a contract for the program by year end, Caudle said August was now the likely timeframe.

U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Daryl Caudle at Sea-Air-Space 2026

Northrop Grumman and Boeing are competing for the F/A-XX contract and both have released artwork of the concepts earlier this year in a public relations push to get the program unstuck from a year long pause that Pentagon leaders had imposed upon the U.S. Navy despite overwhelming support from both the Navy and the U.S. Congress. The Pentagon had revealed its intention to shelve F/A-XX,  indefinitely when it rolled out its proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget last June. At that time, U.S. military officials said concerns about competition for resources with the U.S. Air Force’s Boeing F-47 sixth-generation fighter program had been the primary factor in that decision. Boeing's CEO in particular has pushed back against that narrative and has stated that his company had previous invested billions of dollars into their St. Louis Missouri facility in order to build both planes simultaneously. 

Congress subsequently interceded, appropriating $1.69 billion for F/A-XX through a combination of regular spending bills and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. From a budgetary perspective, the Navy’s next-generation fighter program remains well behind the F-47, which has already received billions in funding and could be in line to get approximately $5 billion more in Fiscal Year 2027. The Navy only appears to be requesting an additional $140 million for its new carrier-based combat jet in the $1.5 trillion proposed defense budget for the next fiscal cycle.

Official U.S. Air Force rendering of the Boeing F-47, which is competing for Pentagon funding with the U.S. Navy's F/A-XX

Admiral Caudle stated, “One of the challenges we’re seeing is, not only [are] our peer competitors improving their capability for anti-air, either air-to-air or surface-to-air, but the lower cost of entry of very capable weapons is also making more players on the field in which that level of stealth and technology is required. So this is not about the need for a peer adversary. This is just having an aircraft that can operate with a level of uncertainty and with the acceptable level of risk.”

Today, Caudle again emphasized that he nevertheless had been “very vocal” on the need for a carrier-based next-generation fighter, and had expressed “many times” to Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg that the service had to secure the aircraft. It’s important, Caudle said, for both the future carrier air wing and collaboration and planning with the MQ-25 Stingray, the Boeing-made carrier refueling drone set to reach initial operational capability later this year.

“It ties to our MQ-25 for stealth refueling. It ties to our reach. It ties to the work we’re doing for making the carrier air wing something that remains very effective into the future based on the range in which you can operate safely,” Caudle said. “So the need’s clearly there.”

Boeing MQ-25A Stingray Carrier-Based Refueling Drone

“We’ve got a lot of airframes out there. We’ve got an F-35 program. We’ve got a F-47 program. You know, we’re still building the [F/A-18 Super Hornet] … there’s a lot of airplanes being built,” Admiral Caudle said today. “The Air Force has got a lot of demand on the system. The Navy’s got a lot of demand … One of the contractors who would make this plane for us is in a place where they really can’t deliver in the timeframe we need it. So there was, you know, a check twice, cut once, kind of mentality here on this decision. And now there, I think we’re all on the same page on the reason why the hard look needed to be done. I’m good with it.”

Northrop Grumman pushed back against Admiral Caudle's statement the next day. Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden says she is confident in her company’s ability to deliver next-generation carrier-based fighters to the U.S. Navy if it is picked as the winner of the F/A-XX competition.

“We do expect the Department [of the Navy] to make an award selection in the third quarter,” Northrop Grumman’s Warden said during a routine earning call today in response to a direct question about Adm. Caudle’s remarks. “We are confident in our ability to deliver our solution to the Navy.”

She did not explicitly confirm or deny that the CNO had been referring to Northrop Grumman when he mentioned a contractor’s inability to meet the Navy’s schedule needs on F/A-XX.

“We and our suppliers are prepared to bring the workforce and infrastructure that’s needed to execute the program, and our track record on B-21 demonstrates that ability to deliver a complex aircraft on schedule,” Warden added. “Regarding the financials, we’d expect upside to the sales and earnings from our current guidance, if we are entrusted to build the F/A-XX, and it would be a top priority for our company to do so.”

Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden

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